By Antony Anand, Head of Digital – Asia, Crown Information Management
Indian enterprises are increasingly embracing Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) to help accelerate workflows, cut costs, and strengthen compliance. There’s no denying that IDP is a promising tool, and the numbers don’t lie either.
Studies exhibit that Indian businesses see a return on investment ranging from 30% to 200% within the first year of deploying IDP solutions. Yes, automated labour-intensive processes have resulted in faster document time. But one critical factor often gets overlooked in IDP ROI: trust. Without this, even if the technology is great on paper, the long-term value would be lost on businesses.
The Trust Gap: When “Working” Isn’t “Reliable”
Automation truly feels like the ideal choice and would likely shine in a ‘controlled’ environment. But what happens when we introduce it into the real world? In AI development, this concept is known as under-specification.
Something as trivial as a new vendor’s layout, or a subtle format change in the invoice, could disrupt even the best IDP systems. These changes aren’t often glaringly obvious, they silently lurk in the back. That is until it triggers:
Silent compliance risks: Missing or misclassified key data could be compliance violations.
Exception handling overload: When errors rise, so do overhead costs and manual interventions.
Regular manual intervention: Instead of AI doing the heavy lifting, the review team must step in more often to either correct or verify the outcome.
What looked great on paper or in tests could start underdelivering during productions. And that’s when ROI begins to erode.
The Cost of Trust Deficit
Several enterprises often expect up to 99% accuracy and 50-90% processing time reduction with IDP. But what happens when these numbers don’t account for the real-life challenges businesses face? Automation can become a bottleneck.
Let’s take a closer look at a real-world example. A logistics firm reduced average processing time by 90% after implementing IDP. However, when new suppliers introduced unfamiliar invoice formats, the system’s performance dipped significantly. Even exception handling shot up by 30%, and a compliance oversight nearly cost the company a whopping ₹1.5 crore.
What could have been a success story was now an unfortunate situation. However, it wasn’t because of the AI. With the system unprepared to detect and adapt to new challenges, the lack of a trust layer to detect, adapt, and govern created a blind spot.
ROI That’s Measurable—and Meaningful
By incorporating a trust layer into the IDP architecture allows businesses to move from reactive problem-solving to proactive optimisation. By developing systems that can explain, adapt, and govern AI decisions in real-time, ROI could be far more than just a number.
Here are the key benefits of the system:
Reduced exceptions: A trusted system that learns and adapts to format variances better.
Faster turnaround times: Even with continuous format changes, invoice processing would be just as seamless.
Compliance protection: Early anomaly detection would flag any potential compliance fines.
However, the numbers and percentages aren’t the most meaningful impact of building trust into the IDP system—it’s the people.
Beyond Labour Cost Cuts: Lifting Work to Higher Ground
Automation often triggers conversations about job losses. However, this isn’t the case with many forward-thinking organisations. Instead of letting people go, they’ve optimised their job with instances where adaptability, insight, and judgment are essential with IDP.
This releases them from repetitive tasks and shifts their focus to critical thinking. Rather than cost-cutting, it uplifts the workforce. This is often an overlooked benefit in automation ROI.
The Executive Takeaway
In a world where AI is everywhere, leadership priorities are slowly shifting. C-Suite leaders are no longer looking for a system to be accurate and fast. They’re now prioritising systems that are reliable, governed, and explainable. Given how data is now recognised as a strategic asset, IDP must do more than perform—it must become trustworthy.
The global IDP market hit a whopping USD 1.45 billion in 2023. However, according to Fortune Business Insights, that number is about to get higher. Due to sectors like logistics, manufacturing, insurance, and banking adopting the system, the market would grow by USD 16.35 billion by 2032.
How IDP Matures in Practice
Long-standing experience in document-intensive industries shows that the most effective IDP deployments are a trust-centric approach. Instead of systems that simply perform, they’re building ones that evolve with the business.
This approach includes:
Trust KPIs to track accuracy drift, exception trends, and confidence scores.
Explanable IDP that creates a roadmap, reducing review time.
A continuous learning process to make sure the system adapts and improves periodically.
Quarterly governance checks to ensure the system is up to date with business goals and compliance standards.
While IDP continues to reshape how Indian businesses operate, this transformation will only be sustainable when trust moves to the centre of the conversation. Trust is more than just an outcome; it’s the foundation.